Chocolate Shortbread with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

June 3, 2017 Tastes of Lizzy T is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. Any highlighted, clickable Amazon link you see is an affiliate link that we may earn advertising fees on.

Chocolate Shortbread with Chocolate Frosting

Chocolate lovers, you are going to love me today. It’s not often I share a strictly chocolate recipe. I love chocolate just as much as anyone else, but the way I like chocolate best is when it is paired with something else. Like peanut butter, caramel, mocha or peppermint. But some days call for good ol’ pure chocolate. Especially Mondays. These Chocolate Shortbread with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting will come to your chocolate-craving rescue on the longest of Mondays.

Shortbread is a classic, simple recipe of just 3 ingredients: flour, sugar and butter. Since I wanted to make this a chocolate shortbread, I reduced the flour a bit to our favorite shortbread recipe and added in some cocoa powder. The result is a thick chocolate layer that slightly resembles fudge. In fact, when we shared these with our Sunday school class, they thought they were fudge and were amazed that it was in fact shortbread. Since I’ve never made fudge successfully, I took it as a compliment!

And when you add the chocolate buttercream frosting on top, the fudgy flavor really pops. You already know of my intense love of frosting, so I wanted the frosting layer on these bars to be just as thick as the shortbread layer. The result?

Perfection. Just a warning. These bars are very sweet. If you’d like them a little less sweet, feel free to make a half recipe of the chocolate buttercream. There will still be plenty of sweetness, and maybe you’ll be able to eat two bars instead of just one. Oh, and have a glass of milk on hand either way. Just because they are more fun with a glass of milk. 🙂

I wanted to make this shortbread in a round cake pan and cut them in “pie” slices for a change, but feel free to use a square baking pan and your bars will turn out just as delicious. You can also add nuts in addition to or in place of the colorful M&M candies. This fudgy treat is completely adaptable to whatever toppings you’d like!

Chocolate Shortbread with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

This thick, fudgy Chocolate Shortbread with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting is topped with M&M candy and is every chocolate lover’s dream!

Ingredients

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

In a medium size bowl, mix together the flour, cocoa powder, sugar and melted butter. Press this mixture into the bottom of an 9" round (or 8x8 square) baking pan that has been sprayed with cooking spray. Bake at 325 degrees for 25 minutes.

Make the Chocolate Buttercream .

After the shortbread has cooled, spread the chocolate buttercream overtop the shortbread. Sprinkle the M&M's on top.

Notes

We like a thick layer of chocolate buttercream on top of our bars. If you'd like these bars to be less sweet, you can make a 1/2 recipe of buttercream for a thinner frosting layer.

You might also like

Tastes of Lizzy T is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. Any highlighted, clickable Amazon link you see is an affiliate link.